



UNITED STATES OF AMERICA. 



NO COMPROMISE WITH TREASON. 



EEMAKKS 



ME/SCHENCK, OF OHIO, 



REPLY fO MR. FERNANDO WOOD, OF NEW YORK 

IN THE DEBATE ON THE RESOLUTION 

TO EXPEL MR. LONG. 




DELIVERED IN THE HOUSE OF EEPEE8ENTA.TIVES, APRIL 11, 1864. 



Mk. Speaker : A student iu natural history would have 
much to learn upon this floor. Some specimens of the snake 
family are so slippery that il seems impossible to classify them 
or to hold them to any place. 

I find myself at a great loss to understand what ground is 
occupied by the gentleman from New York, (Mr. Fernando 
Wood,) who has just taken his seat. He avows that he dis- 
agrees to the position taken by the member from Maryland, 
(Mr. Harris,) who was yesterday visited with the censure of 
the House ; he dissents from the arguments and propositions 
of my colleague, (Mr. Long,) whose case we are now consid- 
ering; and yet he says to his fellow-copperheads, those, if any 
there be, who crawl with him, that there is no such thing as a 
War Democrat, for a' creature of that kind is anomalous. 
[Laughter.] I may be pardoned, therefore, if I have difficulty 
in comprehending his own nature or knowing exactly where 
in the scale to place him. 

But at the close of his remarks the gentleman from New 
York seemed in some small degree to develop his peculiar 
views and purposes. He laid down something like the same 
platform in resolutions which he early in the session oifered 
in this House. Being neither against the war nor for the • 
war, he would send commissioners to Richmond to treat with 
those arrayed in arms against the country, to offer them terms 
of peace. He preaches a " new gospel of peace," of which 
he is the great apostle. 

How many others on his side of the House may agree with 
him I know not. But I do know this : whenever any such 



propositions of Northern Democrats have appeared in public 
print, or their offers or suggestions of peace have been made 
in form, they have invariably been received by the rebels at 
Riclimond with scoffing and repelled with scorn. Their rebel 
friends have not hesitated to declare that such advances, and 
the emissaries who might convey them, could only be enter- 
tained by them with fingers holding their offended aristocratic 
noses. [Laughter.] Tliat only is the way in which they will 
receive Democrats who come to offer them peace. You 
must not "come between the wind and their nobility." 

The gentleman and his friends, then, are willing and pi'o- 
pose to crawl on their bellies to the feet of rebel^,and insur- 
gents in arms, and, looking up piteously, to say : " Oh, our 
masters, notwithstanding all your scoffing and scorn, and 
though you may spurn us from your presence, we implore 
you to say whether you will not graciously agree to make 
some terms with us."' I cannot comprehend this abasement. 

Thank God, I belong to no such party as that. For the sake 
of manhood and humanity, I would trust there are few who 
do. I never will make peace with armed rebels. I am for con- 
cluding no treaties, holding no conferences with insurgent 
States chiiming to an independent,, separate nationality. [Sup- 
pressed applause.] I believe that the only safety for this coun- 
try consists in fighting owt this war to the end, and suppressing 
this rebellion; in taking care to put it down so effectually 
that its hydra head will never be raised in the land again. I 
think that that too may be assumed as the sentiment of this 
House, and its resolved purpose. 

Let me refer to what was the action here on some proposi- 
tions I had the honor myself to submit some time ago in a 
series of resolutions. Li order to refresh the recollection of 
members on both sides of the House I beg to recur to the offi- 
cial record. I find by the Journal of the 20th of February 
last that I moved the adoption of three resolutions, of which 
the first was in these words : 

' Rcaolved. That the present wiir which this Government is carrying on 
against armed insurrectionists and others, banded tog/tner under the name of 
'Southi'rn Confederacy,' was bronght on by a wicked and wholly nnjiistifiable 
rebellion, and those engaged in, or aiding, or encouraging that lebeilion, are 
public enemies, and should be treated as such." . 

How was that resolution received ? It passed without ob- 
jection ; not one dissenting voice; no opposition whatever: 
not even a call for the yeas and naye. )^y general consent 
the Representatives of the people of the United States ac- 
ceptcd that as one plank in the platform upon whicii they, as 
a component part of the Government, were willing to stand 
in their efforts to put down tliis wicked and infamous rebel- 
lion. 



The next resolution is in these terms : 

"•'Resolved, That this rebeliion shall be efifectually put down- and that to 
prevent the recurrence of such rebellion in future the causes which led to this 
one must be permanently removed." 

Some gentleman upon the other side of the House called 
for a division of the question, and asked that a vote mio-ht 
first be taken upon the proposition " that this rebellion slfall 
be efiectually put down." Upon that one hundred and twenty- 
five gentlemen voted in the affirmative, and not one in the 
negative. It passed unanimously. 

And here, in passing, I may remark that among that one 
hundred and twenty-five was my colleague, (Mr. Long,) whose 
case is now under consideration. He then voted his opinion 
as a member of the House of Eepresentatives that this re- 
bellion ought to be effectually put down. It is for him and 
for the country to reconcile, if it be possible, that declaration, 
then solemnly made by his recorded vote, with his belief now 
announced that the rebellion cannot be put down, and thai 
there remains nothing for us but to recognize that insurrec- 
tionary pretended government, and to accept it as one of the 
nationalities of the world. 

The remaining clause of that second resolution was like- 
wise carried by the unanimous consent of the House. Gen- 
tlemen upon the other side affected to believe that ''the causes 
of the rebellion " were not what I plainly intended— slavery 
and the slave power, and the slave influence in this country ; 
and so we united, they construing the language of the reso- 
lution in one way, and I and all the Union members here in 
another. By that motion, then, perhaps nothing was taken. 
Under such a subterfuge gentlemen escaped the issue I pre- 
sented. 

But there remained another resolution, the third and last of 
the series : 

"Eesolved, That in this struggle which is going on for the saving of our 
country and free government, there is no middle ground on which any good 
citizen or true patriot can stand ; neutrality, or indifference, or anything short 
of a hearty support of the Government, being a crime, where the question is 
between loyalty and treason." 

That resolution also passed this House by a unanimous vote 
The gentleman from New York, (Mr. Fernando Wood,) was 
not present ; and some who were present did not vote ; but 
one hundred and nine, being all that did vote upon the qnes- 
tion, recorded their names in the affirmative. Again there was 
not one negative. My colleague, whose case we have now 
before us, was here. He had voted on the previous resolu- 
tion but declined to answer upon this. With some fifteen other 
gentlemen upon that side of the House he preferred to dodge 



the issue, and thej avoided being bronglit to a test whether 
they believed in such middle ground or not. 

IJpon this middle ground, upon which it was agreed no pa- 
triot or true man can stand, the gentleman from New York, 
(Mr. Fernando Wood,) selects his uncertain footing. It is the 
dark, oozy, unwholesome soil, between the solid earth on either 
side, over which unclassified copperheads do ci'eep and mark 
their slimy and doubtful track. 

But what assurance have we that the member from New 
York is going to occupy hereafter atld consistently even the 
ground he has assumed to-day ? He says he is no disunionist. 
He declares against the war ; he is for compromise ; for ne- 
gotiation with rebels ; for peace to be acquired in that way. 
Yet like my colleague, (Mr. Long,) he would not think of 
giving up the integrity of the Union. But what are his an- 
tecedents? Where stood he at the begiiming and after the 
beginning of this great struggle for the life of the nation? 

1 will turn aside here for a moment to consider, as one of 
the remarkable passages in the speech of my colleague, (Mr. 
Long,) the account he has sought to impose upon the country 
of the commencement of the war ; and then I will see if we 
can find what position was in that earlier day taken by the 
gentleman from New York. 

My colleague, (Mr. Long,) in the speech for the utterance 
of which he is now held to account before the House, l>as 
said that hostilities against the Government of the United 
States did not commence until after the inauguration of Pres- 
ident Lincoln. He declares that those hostilities were brought 
on by the desire of the President of the United States ; and, 
the country being drawn into it by a trick, the war proceeded . 
and from that point has been progressing. That I may not 
l;e supposed to misrepresent his language I will read from the 
report of his speech as I have it now before me. 

'■A secret meeting of the Governors of a number of States was soon after 
held in this cit}-. A scheme was devised and a vessel sent out, under pretense 
of furnisliing provisions to the troops with Major Anderson in Fort Sumter. 
On arriving in Charleston harbor the people of that city fired upon the fort. 
The telegrupli bore the news to tliis city, and on its first mention to the Presi- 
dent lie exclaimed, 'I knetu they wonld do it ;' which to my mind i.« conclusive 
that it WHS intended expressly fpr that purpose. Seventy-five thousand men 
were immediately called for; war was inaugurated; twenty days were given 
the insurgents to lay down tlieir arms; an additional five hundred thousand 
men were soon called for ; iiostilities commenced." 

That, Mr. Si)eaker, professes to be history ; and yet a more 
gross, more uiiwarruutable, bolder perversion and misrepre- 
seutatioii of facts was never perhaps presented to the public 
ear. Hostilities cominenced? When? After Mr. Lincoln 
was inauguiated, he says, and not until then; after relief had 
been eent tu the garrison at Fort Sumter; after relief had 



been sent there for the very pnrpose of provoking hostilities; 
after troops had been called out time and again to put down 
the insurgents. Now, is it not well known that before Mr. 
Lincoln, by inauguration, became the President of the United 
States, as early as in the December previous, our own western 
steamboats were attacked and our travel and commerce 
stopped and interrupted by batteries planted for that purpose 
on the banks of the Mississippi river by order of the rebel 
Governor of one of the rebel States? Is it not known to all 
that in January, 1861, an ocean steamer, the Star of the West, 
bearing our flag, was fired upon as she entered the harbor of 
Charleston and compelled to turn and put to sea, as from a 
hostile port? And yet, my colleague here, in the face of these 
and other notorious facts, as I have heard others equally reck- 
less elsewhere, dares, for the sake of putting his own Govern- 
ment in the wrong, to aver that not the traitor rebels but our 
own authorities inaugurated civil war; fixing its commence- 
ment months after these events had transpired. 

But to return. I said I would refer to this with a view to 
the former position of the gentleman from ISlew York, (Mr. 
Feknando Wood.) Whenever and however hostilities com- 
menced, where then was he, and what was his relation to the 
great rebellious movement by which was sought to be de- 
stroyed the integrity and unity of his country ? 

When our difficulties with the South were ripening into 
war, when hostilities were actually commenced, when it was 
not known how far disaflection might extend throughout the 
several States of this Union, there was a mayor of New York 
who proposed that that city should secede from the Govern- 
ment of the United States, and set up for itself as a " Free 
City," on tlie pattern of independent political communities 
of that sort known on the European continent. 

Mr. Fernando Wood. Mr. Speaker — 

The Speaker j97'(? tempore. Does the gentleman from Ohio 
yield to the gentleman from New York ? 

Mr. ScHENCK. I cannot be interrupted, sir, but will con- 
tinue as the gentleman insisted on doing when others sought 
to interrupt him. 

Not that alone, sir; the same mayor of New York, after re- 
bellion was already rampant, when boxes filled with arms 
were stopped by the loyal authorities on the wharves of New 
York, and not permitted to go South, that weapons might be 
put into the hands of those infernal scoundrels who were seek- 
ing to overthrow the Government and the country — that same 
mayor, on being telegraphed to, replied that he regretted he 
had no power over the matter, or he would gladly prevent 
any interference with such transmission of these munitions 
of war. 



Mr. Feknanuo Wood. Mr. Speaker- 
Mr. ScHENCK. Yes, I know that that has been denied here, 
a short time ago, by that gentleman on this floor, and without 
hearing him now, 1 give him the benefit of that denial. But 
he shall also have the benefit of the positive proof, produced 
and published widely in the papers of New York a few days 
afterwards, nailing upon him the falsity of the denial which 
he presented to this House. 

Mr. Fernando Wood. Mr. Speaker — 

Mr. ScHENCK. I am not to be interrupted by that member. 

Mr. Fernando Wood. The gentleman states what is false. 

Mr. Schenck. I have met rebels before, when they had 
something more than tongues with which to contend, and I 
am not to be interrupted or put down by the member from 
JSTew York. As that gentleman has entertained the House 
by the reading of some precious extracts, I propose also to 
send something to the Clerk's desk to be read. It is an ex- 
tract from a paper recently published in his own city. 

The Clerk read, as follows : 

" Mr. Fernando Wood has the effrontery to deny, in the House, that while 
mayor of New York he sent a despatch to Georgia regretting that arms in- 
tended for that State had been stopped in New York. He averred that his 
dispatch related to merchandise only. Here are the dispatches : 

" MiLLEDGEViLLE, /a?mary 24, 1861. 
'To his Honor Mayor Wood : 

" Is it true that any arms intended for and consigned to the State of Georgia 
have been seized by public authorities in New York? Your answer is impor- 
tant to us and to New York. Answer at once. 

E. TOOMBS. 
"To this the mayor returned the following answer: 

"Hon. Robert Toombs, Milledgeville, Georgia: 

"In reply to your dispatch I regret to saj' that arms intended for and con- 
signed to the State of Georgia have been seized by the police of this State, but 
that the city of New York should in no way be made responsible for the 
outrage. 

" As mayor, I have no authority over the police. If I had the power I should 
summarily punish the authors of this illegal and unjustifiable seizure of private 
property. FERNANDO WOOD. 

Now, what excuse will Mr. Wood have to offer the House" 

Mr. SciiKNoK. That will do. I will ask the question 
myself; ask it, too, under the light of the further fact that six 
days before that attempt to give comfort to rebels in arms, 
Georgia had solemly declared her secession from the Union, 
and set herself up by that solemn act in open rebellion. 

It was an " outrage" not to send arms ; and he is no war 
Democrat! Sir, he is a war Democrat, but what kind of a 
war Democrat ? His " war Democracy" consists in an in- 
d'>rsement of a war by his fellow-rioters, led forward under the 



influence of his teachings in New York, who foully and cruelly 
ijiurdered, among others, even one of the othcers of your noble 
army, while wearing the national uniform ! 

Oh, no; probably he shyik away in the midst of that 
riot. Probably he was not ^en in the street. Probably he 
lield no weapon in his hand and applied no torch to any dwel- 
ling. But who does not know that it was the uniform teach- 
ings of him and his school that roused that angry, that unre- 
flecting, that ignorant populace into deeds of violence, of ruin, 
of rapine, of murder, in which it indulged? 

And now he stands heK3 talking smoothly about peace, and 
about being no war Democrat ! 

But, sir, I have another reminiscence for him. There was 
a time when he was a war Democrat — aye, and a war Demo- 
crat of the true stripe, too — not a war against defenceless 
women and children in the streets of New York. 

After he had proposed the secession of the city of Xew 
York, after he regretted that he could not help Georgia with 
arms, he became, on the 20th day of April, 1861. alarmed by 
the roused indignation and swelling voices of a then whole, 
united, loyal people, and met and addressed that people at 
their great meeting in Union square. And there he pledged 
liimself to assembled thousands that he was lor the war, and 
was for the Union. I apprehend he found it convenient to 
have it understood then that he was a war Democrat, just 
like those whom he now denounces around him. 

Perhaps he will deny this too. Let him. Happening to 
be present in New York, and invited, I spoke on that occa- 
sion — you may call it honor or dishonor, as you will — from 
the same stand with him to those assembled thousands. I 
had no acquaintance with him, but I stood near him while-he 
was thus delivering himself and making those loyal pledges 
and avowals. 

I sa}', therefore, that I do not know what kind of a war De- 
mocrat he may be hereafter ; whether he will be against his 
own people and the Government of the United States, as he 
is now ; or against the insurgents, as he was then. His present 
profession is to be neither, but to crawl along on the border 
between the two and try neutrality, which has never yet been 
attempted by any State or people that it has not proved their 
curse and ruin. But, sir, he would propose terms of peace, 
and that peace he would ofler to those who scorn him. He 
insists on seeking those who will extend to him no hand of 
welcome at his coming. 

Sir, I must believe that he sings this siren song of peace 
only for the effect he hopes it may have at home. Party is 
with him before country. And thus he prostrates himself, as 
I have said, at tlie feet of insurgents in arms and cries implor- 



ingly to them, " Do with ns as you will, tear from the flag of 
onr glorious Union half its gleaming stripes, blot out as many 
of those stars as you cau reach and extinguish; only join us 
again that you may help us to restore the Democratic party, 
so that we may hereafter, as heretofore, enjoy power and the 
offices together. For these we will so humble ourselves as 
none of God's creatures ever humbled themselves before." 
(Laughter.] 

Mr. Speaker, the member from New York has been occupy- 
ing the time of the House with the reading of a great number 
of extracts to show the position of certain men pi'ior to this 
war, or about the time of its commencement. Some of these 
extracts are attributed to abolitionists, some to men of other 
parties ; but he strings them all together, seeking thereby, if he 
can, to fill his magazine with weapons of assault against the 
Government and against this side of the Chamber. 

I did not listen to much that was read. I care little for it 
for the purposes of this argument. But I did observe, in the 
course of that reading, that when it happened in two or three 
instances that he gave what purported to be the sentiments 
or declarations of certain members of this body now here 
present, those extracts were promptly denounced as forgeries, 
indorsed though they were by the reputable member from 
New York. It is not unlikely that these spurious specimens 
indicate the character of the whole collection. 

But, sir, I am not here to defend any man. I am not here 
to inquire whether this man or the other was an Abolitionist, 
a Democrat, a Whig, or a Republican ; or what may have 
been their utterances, prudent or imprudent, wise or unwise, 
patriotic or unpatriotic, on any other or former occasion ; 
whether they were right or wrong then. That has all gone 
by. Men might very widely differ and differently express 
themselves on the eve of such a convulsion. They might 
widely differ, too, as to what course was most expedient to be 
pursued in order to avert the great calamity of war from the 
land. 

Three years have now gone by. We are in the midst of 
that war. Armies are confronting armies : bayonets are 
crossed M'ith bayonets. The arguments now to be used and the 
only arguments to be used are the incisive, cutting reasonings 
of the sword, the shar])-pointed renuirk of the l)ayonet, the 
knock down conclusion of the bursting bombshell. It is in 
the midt^t of such fierce and practical debate as this that the 
gentleman from New York comes forward and proposes to 
yield to the arrogant and insolent demands of parricide rebels, 
bearing in his hands as precedents his collection of extracts, 
genuine oi- otherwise, culled from what may have been 
Nvritten in other times and under other circumstances. If he 



9 

made those quotations for any purpose at all it could only 
have been to show that others had stood upon his ground. 
But the difference of occasion is as wide as heaven from hell. 
Admit that those men were wrong, admit that they were all 
at fault in proposing, if they did do so, any such expedients. 
It only follows that they did not then as now understand the 
true character of our people, or the power of self-preservation 
which rests in' our Government. What parrallel is there be- 
tween such hesitation then, and the concessions which would 
be made by this man here now upon this floor, and almost in 
the ver}' presence of the public enemy ? 

Mr. Speaker, I can understand how, in the Revolution, when 
these States, then colonies, broke away from the mother coun- 
try, many a man who was attached to monarchical institutions, 
or fearful of rushing upon the untried experiment of a new 
form of government* to be reached through the horrors of war, 
might have shrunk back and been a Tory of that day. 

But how, after the better part of a century has gone by, 
and this great Government, under the Constitution adopted 
at the close of that Revolution, has gone on prospering 
and to prosper, when it has made its mark high on the roll 
of nations, and the hopes of a world have clustered around 
it — how any one with this history and triumph before him can 
to-day doubt or distrust or bargain away his country's nation- 
ality, is more than I can comprehend. I declare, sir, that in my 
opinion the worst Tory of the Revolution was a patriot and a 
gentleman, compared with a copperhead of 1S64. [Applause.] 

Mr. Speaker, we are, as I have stated, in the presence of the 
enemy. Every man in this Union is to-day, in one sense, a 
citizen soldier. Our people are either in the lines of the Union 
army in front, facing and fighting the foe, or they are in the 
rear, striving by every means possible to strengthen and ad- 
vance the common cause. 

I repeat, ever}- man is a citizen soldier ; and we who arc 
here no less so than others. jSTow, when a soldier is marching 
with the army toward the enemy, or holding his place in line 
of battle re&dy to meet the onset or to make the charge, if 
that soldier — and I beg pardon of our honest, brave fellows in 
the field for even making such a supposition — if that soldier, 
instead of attending to his stern and grim purpose, to the con- 
sideration how he shall best acquit himself in the deadly 
struggle before him, and to the duty which lies present there 
for him to do, should turn to his comrades about him, saying 
to one, " We cannot beat the enemy ;" to another, " We had 
better lay down our arms;'*' to another, " Ourcause is wrong; 
we never can conquer;" and to another, "Let us demand of 
our commanding officer to stop shedding blood, and .have a 
truce between the two armies" — if a soldier at such a time 



10 

should talk thus in the ranks, what would you do with him ( 
You would shoot him ! 

And is a citizen soldier who undertakes to breed distraction 
in the country, who claims that we cannot put down the re- 
bellion, who insists that the rebellion, in his view, is alto- 
gether right and justifiable, who would compromise, who 
would temporize, who would have his Government debased 
to the condition of begging peace from armed and insolent 
insurgents-^-is he less deserving of execration and punish- 
ment ? Though we may not execute sueli a man on the ap- 
propriate gallows erected for criminals, yet, thank God, there 
is a gibbet of public opinion where we can hang him high 
as Haman and hold him there, the scorn of all nations and of 
the world ! [Applause.] 

A few words now more directly to the resolution before 
the House. I wish I had a§ much strength — having just risen 
from a sick bed — as I have desire to go on a little further with 
this examination. • 

The resolution proposes the expulsion of a member of this 
House. It proposes expulsion for the use of language in de- 
bate upon this floor. 

The first objection taken to this resolution is that its pass- 
age would be a dangerous interference with the liberty of 
speech. You mnst not abridge the freedom of debate in these 
Halls, devoted to the discussion of great interests upon the 
right adjustment of which the future prosperity of our coun- 
tiy depends. 

And, sir, there is something plausible in that objection. 
Freedom of speech in a free Government is indeed impor- 
tant ; and the full privilege of fearless and unrestrained de- 
bate is nowhere more important than in these Halls of legis- 
lation, where we are meeting and settling the gravest and 
deepest questions. This principle was not overlooked, we are 
to believe, by the fathers wlio framed our national Constitu- 
tion. Yet the gentlenaan from Kentucky, (Mr. Malloky,) 
who quoted the Constitution yesterday on this point, most 
strangely. omitted a material and significant po*-tion of the 
clause which he cited. He rose in his place and called 
solemnly upon the country — called upon you and called upon 
this House — to witness that here was an attempt to muzzle a 
Kepresentative of the people, and that, too, in violation of 
our organic law, which in very terms provides that " no^mem- 
ber shall be questioned for any speech or debate in 'either 
House." Surprised at such assertion, I took occasion then to 
remind him that that was by no means all the Constitution 
says upon that subject. In treating of the powers of Con- 
gress, it provides, among other things, that Senators and Eep- 
resentatives 



11 

" Shall in all cases, except treasou, felony, and breach of the peace, be priv- 
ileged from arrest during their attendance at the session of their respective 
Houses, and in going to and returning from the same; and for any speech or 
debate in either House, they shall not be questioned i?i any other place'' 

Ah, sir, " iyi any other place.''' While the tVamers of thit 
sacred iastriiraent were taking care jealously to protect and 
hedge around this freedom of debate, so that the.Eepresen- 
tatives of the people might he -left to speak fearlessly and 
without favor here on all subjects, and free from any liability 
to be called to account for such speech elsewhere, they with 
equal wisdom took care to put in a condition that each House . 
was expected to see to and preserve its own purity and charac- 
ter. The House was to take care that there should be nothing- 
said or done here, here above all other places, which should 
be prejudicial to good order or inimical to the liberties of 
this country ; nothing which might tend to give up or aban- 
don' or break down the very Government itself. I do not 
wonder that gentlemen engaged in the desperate cause of .de- 
fending treasonable utterances ou this floor should be unwill- 
ing to quote the whole language of the Constitution, but 
should garble, clip, travesty it, and keep out of view that 
which was put there by wtse foresight to meet exactly such 
cases as this in hand. 

But gentlemen make another defense. They say the words 
of my colleague were not treasonable utterances. 

In one sense they are right. Treason is defined by law and 
by the Constitution. It consists not in language, but in cer- 
tain overt acts, and it can be proved only by certain measure 
and degrees of testimony. But it does not necessarily follow 
that when you are arraigning a member for language improper, 
to be used, or acts improper to be done, upon this floor, you 
must try him only as if by strict forms and rules of a law in 
a judicial court. I can conceive many instances in which 
oftense might be given here, requiring the intervention of the 
House and calling for its severest punishment, where there 
has been notliing even savoring of treason. A member might 
make an indecent exposure of his person ; he might use lan- 
guage so profane and obscene and oflensive in character as to 
require that he should be instantly expelled, and no more and 
no longer be permitted to remain as one of our body, and yet 
not be guilty of treason or of any other crime defined by the 
statutes of the country. 

I am not, therefore, in supporting this resolution, driven to 
the necessity of taking the ground that treason has been com- 
mitted. And when I say that the language used was treason- 
able, I mean to be understood in this qualified sense, that 
while there may not have been a crime committed for which 
he might be -held to account before the other tribunals of the 



12 

country, yet such words being uttered here and at this par- 
ticular time, flagrante hello, with the rebel force at our very 
doors, they become in their tendency and effect encourage- 
ment to the rebellion and an instigation to the enemies of the 
nation to go on in their attempts to overthrow it. 

Now, sir, I was hot present when my colleague, (Mr. 
Long,) delivered his speech. I was in my room, unable by 
reason of illness to be in my place. But I have a full, offi- 
cial, and authorized report of that speech ; and to satisfy me 
that he deserves the heavy punishment proposed, I do not 
need to look any farther than to passages in it which strike 
my eye now as I hold it here in my hand. I will read : 

" Mr. Chairman, I have deemed it proper thus to advert to the charges of 
encouragement, to the confederates so repeatedly made upon this floor, and I 
again recur to the consideration of the Union. Can the Union be restored by 
wai' ? I answer most unhesitatingly and deliberately, No, never, ' war is 
final, eternal separation.' " 

Again, in speaking of the remarks of the gentleman from 
Pennsylvania, (Mr. Stevens,) and in trying to ally those opin- 
ions to his — with what want of success the gentleman from 
Pennsylvania has most triumphantly shown — he says : 

"The confederate States are out of the Union, occupying the position of an 
independent Power de facto, have been acknowledged as a belligerent both by 
foreign nations and our own Government, maintained their declaration of in- 
dependence for three years by force of arms, and that the war has cut assunder 
all the ligaments and abrogated all the obligations that bound them under the 
Constitution." 

Here, sir, I propose to make one single remark in reference 
to.my own view of this subject — of the rights of these seced- 
ing States and of the people of those States. I belong to that 
class of theorists — for we all have theories on these subjects 
— who believe that the rebels by their insurrection and mak- 
ing war on their Government have forfeited, if we choose to 
enforce that forfeiture, all \\iq\y rights as citizens of this coun- 
try, and yet have not released themselves from a single one of 
their obligations. And I hold, therefore, that we must press 
them with tire and sword in order to bring them back again 
into subjection to the law of the land, and to their places as 
good and law-abiding citizens, as if they were foreigners ; and 
at the same time we liave the right, because tliey are not for- 
eigners and have not rid themselves of their obligations under 
the Constitution, to treat them as traitors under the law. In 
otlier words — to use a homely figure — we pursue them with 
a double-barreled gun. We may shoot them as beligereuts, 
or we may shoot them as traitors. They are subjects^ on the 
one hand, for the sword, because they have themselves taken 
tlie sword and brought the curse thus upon themselves; and 
they are, on the otlier hand, the subjects also uf hemp, to be 



13 

raised to the elevation which only properly belongs to such 
traitors. 

But my colleague, (Mr. Long,) in these remarkable utter- 
ances of his, says that these people are entirely free, and that 
the war has cut asunder all the ligaments and abrogated all 
the obligations which bound them under the Constitution. 
Mark that.. Let ns pause a moment more on that. They have 
cut themselves free from all ligaments, and all obligations are 
abrogated ! Then there is no such thing as a traitor in this 
land. Then Jeff. Davis is an honest and patriotic citizen, 
entitled to the right hand of fellowship. He has freed him- 
self from every obligation. He owes no duty to the law. He 
owes nothing to the Constitution. There is no possibility of 
pursuing him and bringing him to pnnishment^vithout doing 
him a wrong. And this is the doctrine preached here in an 
American Congress ! And we are expected not to say that 
the man who thus talks in his place here is unfit to hold a 
seat in this House ! 

A colleague of mine, (Mr. Garfield,) replying to that other 
colleague, (Mr. Long,) spoke of him as a brave, bold man. 
I agree with him. He spoke of him, also, as an honest man. 
Well, he may be honest. That is between himself and his 
God. But I find it difficult to understand how a man, intelli- 
gent and able as this speech proves its author to be, can be so 
dangerously wrong, and yet witli innocent purpose. This 
speech he himself admits was not made on the spur of the 
moment, but after long weeks of careful preparation, of prun- 
ing and filing ; and it will not do to let him off on the sup- 
position that it is a mere misapprehension or mistake on his 
part. I accept the issue which he presents. Either he is all 
wrong and bad on this subject, and is siding with the enemies 
of his country, or we are all wrong. The member from ISTew 
York says we are the disunionists. If so, sir, we have a sing- 
ular way of showing it. We the disunionists on this side of 
the House; we, who uphold the Government; we, who vote 
men, money, means, all the men, all the money, all the means, 
all the appliances for carrying on the war to crush this un- 
holy rebellion ; we the disunionists, and he, forsooth, the 
Simon Pure patriot of the land ! 

Well, there is a class of people in this country who have al- 
most persuaded themselves, by frequent repetition, that they 
are in favor of the Union, while at the same time by their 
speeches, their votes, and their actions, they refuse to do any-» 
thing to sustain it ; men who even proclaim that they are in 
favor of a vigorous prosecution of the war, too, and yet vote 
against every practical measure for maintaining our armies 
in the field. And then these men turn upon us and say, 
*' We are with you; we are in favor of putting down this re- 



14 

bellidn ; we believe that it can only be eifectuallj crushed by 
the strong arm of power ; but we do not like ' the way in 
which you are seeking to accomplish your just object. You 
suspend the habeas corpus, you indulge in' abitrary arrests, 
yon suppress freedom of speech. When the robber is in your 
iiouse, you will not sit down with us and count the cost, to 
see how much it will take to turn him out. When the mur- 
derer is in your home, with his knife at the throat of your 
wife and children, you do not ask him to wait, as you should, 
till you can run to the nearest justice of the peace, make an 
affidavit, and have him regularly arrested according to law. 
And therefore we cannot go with you in your measures." 

There is one classical precedentjfor those who take these 
extraordinary positions which I beg to commend to gentle- 
men upon the other side; and I know there are a good many 
of them distinguished for their knowledge and familiarity 
with_ the English and other classics. If they will look into 
Gulliver's Travels, that admirable and popular satire of Dean 
Swift, and see what judgment was passed upon the great Man 
Mountain by his little Lilliputian friends upon the occasion 
of his extinguishing the flames which were destroying the 
queen's palace, they will comprehend the reasonableness of 
their objections. It was a good thing to stop the conflagra- 
tion, but very bad to make the most efl"ectual appliance for 
doing it. [Great laughter.] 

So there are war Democrats who cry "Down with the re- 
bellion," while they denounce every vigorous means for put- 
ting it down. 

lint I have been drawn away from asking your attention to 
further most objectionable portions of the speech on which 
my colleague is arraigned. I read again : 

'As will be judged, perhaps, bj' the tenor of these remarks, I am reluctantly 
and despoudingly forced to the couclusion that the Uuiou m lost, never to be 
restored." 

Again he says : 

- "What has been predicted by our wisest and most eminent statesmen has 
come to pass; ill grasping at the shadow we have lost tlie substance; in striv- 
ing to retain the casket of liberty in which our jewels were contine.!, we have 
lost those previous muniments oi' freedom. Our Government, as all know, is 
not anything rest-mbling what it was three years ago; there is not one single 
vestige of the Constitution remarning; every clause and every letter of it has 
been violatt-d, arid I have no idea myself that it will ever again be respected." 

And again : 

"Mr. Chaiiman, I take little or no interest in the discussion of the question 
which many of my p.jlitical friefids would make an issue, as to how tliis war 
ehjill be prosecuted, its manntr and objects. I regard that as worse than 
triHing with the great question. I do not believe there can he any prosecution 
of I lie war against a sovereign State under the Constitution, and J do not b«- 
Hevc that a war fo carried on can be prosecuted so as to reader it proper, joe- 
tifiable, or expedient" 



15 

Then, according to this, we are engaged in a war which is^ 
improper, unjnstitiable, inexpedient ; and which cannot be 
prosecuted without resulting in its consequences in the de- 
struction of our Constitution and the overthrow of all free 
government in the land. Must these and other like expres- 
sions, pervading the whole of this elaborate argument in fa- 
vor of secession and against preserving the integrity of our 
nation, go unrebuked? I trust not ; and I shall greatly have 
mistaken the patriotism and dignity and sense of justice of 
this House if they do. 

Sir, I desire to say in conclusion, in relation to this whole 
matter of the war and our country's trials, that I believe 
strong remedies for desperate diseases may properly be re- 
sorted to. I admit that constitutional power may sometimes 
have been strained, but I am of opinion that it has not been 
exceeded. And when gentlemen speak with such holy horror 
of the possibility of " overleaping the Constitution in order 
to save the country," I confess that I do not see anything so 
terrible in that figure. What is the Constitution ? The form 
and framework of our system, under and through which the 
people may carry on their Government. It is, after all, the 
form only, and not the life itself. Mark this difference. The 
builders of this our framework have provided in itself the 
mode of its own amendment and renovation; but no such 
change was ever contemplated for the Nation. The Constitu- 
tion may undergo alteration, but the ^Nation, for which it was 
made, must be one and eternal. To those, then, who talk idly 
of permitting this Nation to be destroyed rather than see any 
provision of the" Constitution in the least exceeded, I say that 
under the pretense of saving the Constitution they are mak- 
ing war. or encouraging- those who do make war, upon the 
Nation and People for whom that Constitution was created. 
But we who stand by the Government would tax all the pow- 
ers of tliat Constitutiot to the utmost that the Nation itself 
may live. 



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